


it'll take more than saffron to make me cry

by gericault



Category: Top Chef RPF
Genre: Bullying, Fix-It, Hate Sex, M/M, Reconciliation, Rivalry, Top Chef Season 2, Verbal Humiliation, consensual but extremely dysfunctional, my terrible garbage ship, seriously Ilan you were my fave FIX IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-06
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-12-08 01:34:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11636190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gericault/pseuds/gericault
Summary: A gnat, he thinks, watching episode 9, yeah, Sam was right about that. Tiny, everpresent, buzzing annoyingly in your ear, tough to get a hold of but very easy to crush.





	it'll take more than saffron to make me cry

**Author's Note:**

> ...I just couldn't stop wondering how they went from fiery mutual hatred in ep 2x13 to being all cute with each other in ep 3x1. (The answer, obviously: sex.)

It's one cherry that finally breaks him. Or the pit, actually, that Marcel spits in his face.

Just like Cliff did, Ilan's violating the contract when he shoves Marcel against the kitchen wall and pins him there. But they're the only ones left in the competition and it's two AM and production's shut down for the night and even if Marcel has marks on him in the morning, what's anybody going to do? If Ilan's disqualified there won't be any finale. That last episode means more to Bravo, he's absolutely sure, than Marcel's scrawny ass.

"So we gonna do this now?" Marcel says, breathing hard.

"Am I gonna strangle you now? Hmm, yeah, I think I am."

"You know what I fucking mean," Marcel says nastily, with a knowing tone to his voice that's unsettling--and it's even more unsettling how he's not _really_ trying to fight his way out of Ilan's grip, not like he tried to fight out of Cliff's. "It's been all over your fucking face this whole competition."

"Yeah," Ilan says, off-balance but trying not to show it, "I've been wanting to kick the shit out of you since day one--"

"You've been wanting to _fuck_ me since day one."

He backs off a step but only to shove Marcel into the wall again, not hard enough to knock the wind out of him but close. "This is why we all fucking hate you," he hisses, mouth very close to Marcel's cheek, "you think you're such hot shit--"

"Tell me I'm wrong, asshole," Marcel says, and then--then he cants his hips up against Ilan's and says it again, "tell--me--I'm--wrong," and--

Oh no. Oh no.

But he doesn't have to murder Marcel right there with his bare hands because Marcel's already harder than Ilan is, straining up to align his cock with Ilan's so he can rock against it, and God, it feels like release already, and Ilan's speechless for a second.

Then Marcel's grinning up at him triumphantly and Ilan finds words again. "I _hate_ you," he says. "Hate your voice and your food and your dicksucking lips--"

"Oh you _wish,"_ Marcel says, and Ilan has a glorious vision of shoving him down to his knees and fucking his mouth till he's covered in tears and drool and come.

"Hate your stupid douchebag hair--"

He fists his hand in it, wrecking the careful coif as much as he can, and Marcel's eyes flash with rage. _"Don't touch my fucking hair!"_ Ilan bares his teeth, pulling Marcel's head back and watching his throat work as he pants, but then Marcel's hand comes up snake-quick, snatches his glasses off his nose and hurls them clattering across the room. "Before I knew it was Cliff on top of me," he says viciously, "I was sure it was you."

"Bet you were disappointed," Ilan hisses, pulling harder on Marcel's hair so he has to get all the way up on his toes, thighs starting to tremble.

"Yeah, the best part of waking up is getting assaulted by a repressed piece of shit who can't handle his gay thoughts--"

"Come on, you would've begged for it, you fucking little slut. 'Please, Ilan--'" He does his best, meanest imitation of Marcel's whine. "'Fuck me, please, I need your cock in my ass so bad--'"

Marcel turns his head away with an angry, protesting sound. "Make up your mind, asshole, am I a slut or a virgin?"

"Both," Ilan says, and now he's the one smirking. "You're fucking gagging for cock and nobody will give it to you 'cause _nobody likes you--_ fuck!"

Marcel's got his skinny fingers around Ilan's dick through his pajama pants. His face is still hot and red but a determined look has replaced the humiliation there. "Yeah," he snipes back, "like your dick's so fucking great, like I need you panting after my ass every minute--"

In Ilan's head the scale on Marcel is definitely tipping toward slut, because his grip and pressure are, fuck, really good, he knows what he's doing. Ilan fights not to close his eyes and loses for a second and that doesn't escape Marcel's notice because Ilan feels his fingers work tighter and faster, hears his chuckle of satisfaction. God, Ilan wants to punch him. Or spin him around, shove his face to the wall and fuck him till he comes so hard he screams, oh, this is bad-- but-- "You keep telling me I wanna fuck you and you _haven't said no."_

"Yeah, you tell yourself that if it makes you feel better," Marcel says, but he's a little too breathless to be convincing.

"Still not saying no," Ilan says, and then he grabs the collar of Marcel's button-down and rips it open.

Marcel makes a very gratifying sound of surprise. He isn't the only one-- Ilan's never torn the buttons off anyone's shirt before. But Marcel's always fired up impulses in him that he doesn't completely understand.

"Man, your balls haven't even dropped yet, how'd you grow hair on your chest?" He grabs a few hairs and pulls _hard_ and to his satisfaction Marcel yelps in pain.

"Guess I'm more man than you," Marcel manages to squeak out through clenched teeth, even as he's trying to hold back tears.

"Let's find out," Ilan says, and shoves Marcel's pants down.

Thank God he's not smaller than Marcel, if he were he'd probably have to jump off the roof, but unfortunately he's not visibly bigger either. Marcel's voice is still creaky as he sneers, "Gonna stare at my dick all night? Is it everything you dreamed of?"

"Mediocre," Ilan says, "just like your food," and grabs it, and grins when Marcel gasps and tenses.

Marcel's cock fits well in his hand, Ilan's surprised to learn; it's satisfying, like the weight and balance of a good knife. Even more satisfying are the little whining noises Marcel's unable to bite back as Ilan strokes him, fingers tight. He wants to make it good, make Marcel surrender, give it up for him and beg _please, please._ "I should've," Ilan says, breath coming erratically, "should've fucked you in LA, gave the tape to production, let 'em put it on TV, show everyone you're my little fucking whore--" The sound Marcel makes is half-wild, and then he grimaces, head thumping back against the wall. "Gonna come, you little shit? Jizz on yourself like you jizz foam all over every fucking plate?"

"Me and my foam are gonna win-- make you lick it off the fucking floor--"

Then his thin, sneaky hand is down Ilan's pants and around his dick, jerking him off quick and rough, and Ilan's humiliated by how desperate his groan is. Need is heating him up inside, weakening him, he can't let Marcel get him off like this, make him feel like he's the one about to beg--

Ilan growls and wrenches Marcel's hand away from his dick, pinning his wrist to the wall above his head and holding it there as Ilan crowds up tighter against him, getting his other hand around both their cocks together. Marcel makes a shrill noise and then shakes his head violently as if to undo it. "C'mon," Ilan's saying under his breath, "bitch, c'mon, c'mon--"

Then with one loud sharp _"Fuck"_ Ilan comes, brutally hard, shoving his hips against Marcel's convulsively, biting down on bitter shame; but Marcel doesn't hang on much longer, shuddering in Ilan's hold with a choked noise. It'll make Ilan angry, later, when he can't stop thinking about how pretty Marcel was, gasping, coming down.

He goes limp, dead weight between Ilan and the wall for a few seconds, and then revives and shoves hard at Ilan, hissing, "Get away from me." Ilan does, snickering when Marcel's knees buckle without his support and he almost crumples down the wall, although Ilan's legs are shaky too.

"Needed it real bad, didn't you," Ilan says, but Marcel's already turning, steadying himself with a hand on the wall as he walks away wordlessly. "Maybe I will fuck you next time," Ilan calls after him. "Consolation prize when you lose."

Marcel doesn't react, not even with a middle finger. It's a little unnerving. Twenty-four hours later Ilan's the winner, but when he gets back to the hotel Marcel's already packed and gone.

 

 

\-------

 

 

A gnat, he thinks, watching episode 9, yeah, Sam was right about that. Tiny, everpresent, buzzing annoyingly in your ear, tough to get a hold of but very easy to crush.

He watches that episode a couple times over, listening to Marcel's voice telling Betty not to go out with the plates, trying to hear the same snottiness on TV that he heard in the kitchen, and the side effect is that he watches Marcel drip chocolate into Artie Bucco's wife's mouth more than once, too.

After episode 11 he stops binge watching and goes out to binge drink in six or seven bars in Green Point, and wakes up next to a girl who wanted to sleep with the winner of Top Chef, and she asks him if he has any Marcel stories, and he throws her clothes at her and tells her to get the fuck out.

 

 

\-------

 

 

"Hey. It's Ilan. You're not doing the reunion show?"

A long, long pause. "How did you get my number?"

"Production. They asked me to do the show and I asked if you were and they said no, and I said I could get you to change your mind."

"Fucking production," Marcel says under his breath, and then for Ilan's hearing, "okay, thanks for calling, _bye."_

But he doesn't actually hang up. "Why aren't you doing the show?"

"Why does anybody not do anything? Cause I don't want to."

"You wanna beat season one, though, right? You wanna, like... redeem yourself?"

He can _hear_ Marcel's smirk drop. "Motherfucker, I don't need to redeem shit, fucking everybody knows I'm a better chef, you won because your fucking sous chefs liked you better--"

"Okay, so, prove it, do the show."

"What's your deal, dude? Why do you want this so bad?"

Because I want to know how you're doing, Ilan doesn't say. See if you're okay. "Because I want to win."

Another pause, and then Marcel says, "Yeah, I'm gonna go."

"Wait, don't--" CALL ENDED.

One ring before it goes to voice mail, Marcel picks up again. "God. What?"

"Did you watch our season?"

"Yeah, like a year ago when it aired, before the finale. Heard all the shit you talked about me, dude. Thanks for that."

"Well, uh." His mouth is a little dry and he licks his lips. "I didn't. At the time. I didn't wanna be, like, distracted. I saw it in reruns." And then, forcing himself to say it: "Did you watch the one with, uh..."

"No," Marcel says quietly.

"Yeah. Well. I, uh... I did."

"Did your footage look good?" His voice is nastier than Ilan's ever heard it, with none of that hipster indifference that's always driven Ilan up the wall.

"No," he says. "It didn't." He turns the phone away from his mouth so Marcel won't hear him take a deep breath and let it out. "It looked... really bad. I-- looked really bad."

These long silences on Marcel's end of the line are getting more and more unsettling. "Yeah," he says finally. "Shouldn't have shaved your head, dumbass."

 _"No--_ okay, fine, but no, I'm not talking about--" He squeezes his eyes shut and covers his eyes with his hand, glad Marcel can't see him. "I mean, that night, I wasn't-- the person I thought I was. The kind of person I wanted to be."

"You mean, like, a chef?"

"Oh my God, you little shit, would you just stop being _you_ for one second so I can fucking apologize?"

There's an odd hollowness to Marcel's voice. "Well, you suck at it. Like you suck at literally everything." Then his tone shifts, cutting again, though still a little unsteady. "Wait. Dude. Are you just saying you're sorry because you still wanna hump me? I always figured remembering me pinned to the floor made it better for you. Did you TiVo it so you could jerk off?"

"Oh come _on,_ don't act like you weren't into me--"

"Maybe I would've been more into you if you hadn't laughed while Cliff gave me fucking bruises, dude."

He wonders, for a very surprising instant, what Marcel not hating him would feel like-- what not hating Marcel would feel like-- what Marcel's mouth would feel like--

"Marcel," he says. "I was really drunk. _I'm sorry."_

"Fuck you." He sounds like he might be crying. Ilan would've reveled in that, once. "Getting drunk doesn't make you do shitty stuff, it brings out the shitty _person_ that's already there."

"Come on, just-- do the show. Our team, season two, we're not gonna win without you. We need you. C'mon. I won't-- we don't have to-- if you don't want--"

He can hear Marcel's breathing, loudly arhythmic. "You need me."

"We need you, yeah. You're pretentious as shit but you're-- a pretty good chef, Marcel."

"No," Marcel says. _"You._ Say it."

"What do you mean, I don't..."

 _"Say_ it."

He pulls the phone away from his cheek, mutes it, and curses Marcel extravagantly for about thirty seconds. When he's done, Marcel is still on the line, and that-- means something, he's not sure what.

"I need you," Ilan says.

The quiet that follows lasts for so long that Ilan looks at his screen to check that the call hasn't dropped.

Marcel finally says, in a fragile voice, "Do you want me? Still?"

Ilan clenches his teeth and the fist that isn't holding his phone and hates every choice he's made in life up to this point.

"I didn't... ever stop," he says.

Marcel's breath catches loudly; it sounds like he's still crying. "You're such a fucking asshole," he says. It occurs to Ilan suddenly that Marcel never cried during the competition, even when Ilan tried to drive him to it, over and over.

"Yeah," he says.

He sits with his hand over his eyes and wonders why Marcel hasn't hung up the phone.

"Listen," Ilan says. "You don't have to do the reunion show. Just... come to New York."

"I don't need you to teach me anything," Marcel says flatly, as if Ilan is very stupid.

"I know. Forget about that. You can bring your xanthan gum and whatever, teach me some shit."

"The show's over, you won, you can quit fucking with me any time, dude. I'm over it."

"I mean it," Ilan says. "Just for a weekend. I'll pay for your flight if you want. Come out here, we'll-- come see me."

"Why are you like this?" Marcel says, suddenly fervent. "You act like you like me and then you rip me behind my back, you laugh your ass off while I get my face ground into the floor, you say I _disrespect food_  and now you wanna be friends? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

"I don't know. I'm trying to--" He swallows hard, probably audible over the phone. "Marcel. Please."

 _"Fuck_ you," Marcel says.

"Please."

 

 

\-------

 

 

It's very upsetting to Ilan how much more fuckable than punchable Marcel looks now, standing in his apartment doorway. He's still big-eyed and pale and slim and young-looking and although his face and posture are slightly wary, he still has that peculiar innocence that Ilan's always wanted to wreck-- the troubling urge he used to try to hide with jokes about Marcel's lack of sex life. He was hiding absolutely nothing, he knows now, having watched himself on TV.

"That haircut's so stupid," Marcel says. "The second stupidest haircut you've ever had."

"You should talk, Wolverine."

"Say another word about my hair and I'm getting the fuck out of here."

They stare at each other across the threshold, and then Ilan says, "C'mon," and reaches to take Marcel's backpack.

He almost buckles under the weight. "Fuck, what's in here? A thousand pictures of Wylie Dufresne?"

"Books," Marcel says.

"Fifty pounds of books."

"I didn't come here to waste time," Marcel says. "I'm reading about ultrasound, if you care, which you don't."

"Yeah," Ilan says, "turns out I don't. Uh..." Being nasty to Marcel is still instinctive; he's still a snooty, filterless, indefinably weird little twerp, and he obviously still has the reciprocal instinct toward Ilan. But he didn't invite Marcel here so they could reenact the show. And there were moments in Hawaii that have gnawed at him since he relived them through the cameras' eyes: Marcel sitting next to him on the flight over, sharing fresh uni with him on the beach-- moments when Marcel seemed to want to trust him. Even long after the night when it became clear that he shouldn't.

"You hungry? Midnight snack?"

"I'm not really in the mood for Spanish. So no." Oh, this is going to be a long weekend.

"Well, okay, you wanna cook us something?"

"Not in your fucking Kenmore kitchen, dude."

"God-- okay. Fine. Do you want a beer?" Marcel narrows his eyes, and then nods.

He follows Ilan into the kitchen, catches the bottle opener Ilan throws him and eyes Ilan's hands as he pulls a six-pack of Shock Top out of the fridge. "That all you got?" Marcel says, opening his own and reaching for Ilan's, with a tip of his chin towards the remaining beers.

"Yeah," Ilan says, unsettled; he didn't expect Marcel to take losing _well_ but exactly how bad--

Marcel upends both open beers and pours them down the sink.

"Hey, what the _fuck?"_ He's too stunned to intervene as Marcel pulls the six-pack across the counter and cracks open two more.

"You're a good guy," Marcel says, with a slight curl of his lip, "right? It's just that booze makes you do ugly shit that you wouldn't normally do. Right?" Ilan just stares at him. "So as long as I'm here, no fucking booze."

As the last two bottles drain, Ilan sputters, and finally manages to say, "You owe me for those!"

Marcel shrugs casually as he starts to rinse the empty bottles out. "Well, you're the one who just got a hundred grand and a new kitchen, but sure, I'll give you ten bucks for the beer."

When he comes up behind Marcel, taking hold of his wet wrists and pressing him up against the countertop, Ilan hears him take a breath, but it's not quite a gasp, not quite surprise. Still, he can feel Marcel's body tense. "You," Ilan says, then pauses in surprise at how rough his voice sounds and clears his throat before continuing, "make me do-- shit I wouldn't normally do."

"I've never made you do anything," Marcel says very softly.

Marcel's body is warm and well-fitted to his, neat and compact, and Ilan thinks about putting a hand to the back of Marcel's head and pushing him down, bending him over the sink...

He lets go, steps back. "Uh. You wanna go to a club or something?" he asks, hands in front of him, palms out. "If I don't drink?"

"If you're willing to be my bodyguard, maybe. I don't go out a whole lot anymore," Marcel says, turning around and touching a finger to the scar above his eye.

"Okay," Ilan says, feeling helpless. "What do you wanna do?"

\--

"God damn," Ilan says breathlessly, on his back with Marcel straddling him, "you really are a fucking virgin, tight as fuck--" He pushes up into Marcel hard, and Marcel makes a small, helpless sound that Ilan can tell he's ashamed of; and then he tosses his head as if to shake something off, leans forward and puts his hand around Ilan's throat.

He probably doesn't have the strength in his hands to cut off Ilan's air, but he's got enough to make it tough for Ilan to speak. So he digs his fingers into Marcel's hips and starts to fuck him, not gently. "Ah," Marcel says in his reedy voice as he rides each thrust, "ah," a whine when Ilan gives his nipple an unmerciful pinch, "ahh, _fuck,"_ when Ilan grabs at his ribcage to pull him down and change their angle.

"Shit, you like that," Ilan strains to say, and this isn't how he intended it but it comes out like surprise and even awe.

Marcel says, "Oh-- oh, God--" and his grip on Ilan's throat loosens, and that's Ilan's opportunity to wrestle him over so he's on his side as Ilan slides into him from behind, grabbing his hair with one hand and pulling his thigh up with the other, spreading him. He bites Marcel's shoulder and Marcel's wail is glorious.

"Tell me how much you like it," Ilan says, pushing in him to the root and holding still there, holding Marcel still as he struggles to get Ilan's rhythmic movement back.

"Fuck you," Marcel gasps out.

"Not gonna move till you say how good it is," he says against Marcel's skin. "Just wanna know it's good for you. Cause I _care."_ The words come out less mocking than he meant them, a difference that Ilan will try not to analyze.

"Hate you. Nnn--" Marcel shivers against him, and then although Ilan can't see much of Marcel's face he can _sense_ that infuriating smirk and Marcel says, "Yeah. Try not to move," and tightens around him and Ilan swears explosively.

"Come on come on come on," he says through gritted teeth, "talk, you little fuck," and Marcel laughs, and Ilan can't hold on-- he groans loudly and starts to fuck Marcel again, harder than before. When he can't get deep enough he rolls Marcel over onto his back and bends him in half, skinny thighs pressed to his chest, and Marcel's not laughing anymore; he's making sharp hurt sounds and Ilan stops, shaking in the effort to hold himself still.

 _"No,"_ Marcel cries out, squirming on his dick, "no, fuck me, c'mon--" Then he squeezes his eyes shut and bites viciously into his lower lip as if to hold back his need. Ilan holds back, just barely, the urge to suck on that lip.

He moves again, driving his hips fast, rocking the bed and Marcel's body, and Marcel claws at him, nails scraping his arms and chest. His cries sound agonized and Ilan wants to strip off the condom, fuck him raw and fill him with all the come he can take. He fumbles Marcel's cock into his hand, gives it a few rough, awkward strokes and Marcel seizes up and nearly screams as come stripes up his chest and stomach. "Yeah," Ilan groans out half-consciously. "Yeah. Sweetest little ass I've ever had, fuck--"

Then, still gasping, Marcel runs his hand up his wet belly and shoves two dripping fingers into Ilan's mouth, and Ilan comes like that, bitter taste on his tongue, Marcel weak and shaking around him.

He sinks forward on his elbows, exhausted, and Marcel makes a little noise as some of Ilan's weight comes down on him, and Ilan has to fight, again, not to kiss him.

Marcel shoves at him after a while and says, "Get off me," but the angry humiliation that was in it in Hawaii isn't there now. Ilan flops over onto his back and dozes in and out for a while as Marcel gets out of bed. A while later he comes back, shower-smelling, and snatches one of Ilan's pillows. "I'm not sleeping in your bed with you, dude," he says, with an edge of disgust that's plainly a cover for something more vulnerable. "I'll take the couch."

The cold and sharp memory of another apartment, another night, Marcel curled up small on another couch, pulled awake as Sam turned the lights on--

"No," Ilan says, "I will. You're my guest, you can have the bed."

Marcel gets that wary look again, like another cruel joke's being played on him and the punchline's on the way; he'll probably always look at Ilan like that and Ilan hates himself desperately.

At last he nods, and then a smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. "You just don't wanna sleep in the wet spot."

"True," Ilan says. "The bed comes as is."

He finds himself staring as Marcel fishes things out of his backpack, pulling a clean pair of boxers over his skinny hips and opening up a brand-new toothbrush. He acts as if he doesn't feel Ilan's eyes, but then he says, without looking away from what he's doing, "If you wake me up in the middle of the night, it better be for a blowjob this time."

\--

He wakes Marcel up for a blowjob at nine the next morning, and doesn't even let Marcel jerk him off afterwards, darting into the kitchen instead to give elimination-challenge focus to two plates of eggs Benedict, because he needs to stop looking at Marcel and feeling the way Marcel's morning bedhead and soft eyes and sleepy half-audible murmur are making him feel.

Maybe a hummingbird, he thinks, a quick darting flamboyant creature, dive-bombing you if you're wearing the wrong color but easily won over with a little sweetness.

When he's done cooking Marcel is out of the shower with a towel slung around his hips, combing his hair into place. He slips onto a barstool as Ilan sets out their plates and pours coffee. With a delicacy that's half irritating and half-- not, Marcel picks up some Hollandaise sauce on the tines of his fork and tests it.

His lips twitch. "Dude, is there anything you won't put paprika in?"

Ilan makes a desperate effort to get mad. All he can do in the end is crack up. "Just for you. Thought you'd like it," he says, shaking his head.

"I do," Marcel says.

**Author's Note:**

>  
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> losers


End file.
